


The Last True Mouthpiece

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Mythology References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3595425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first spring after grief is a shock to the soul. The aftermath of The Last Battle - regrets, hope and a different take on the Problem of Susan. Inspired by a 3SF prompt for a line from "Take Me to Church" by Hozier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last True Mouthpiece

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ViaLethe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViaLethe/gifts).



> With thanks to vialethe for the 3SF prompt, and references to the wonderful stories by rthstewart.

_In the shambles of love, they kill only the best._

\- Rumi, "Four Quatrains"

_…Great God! I’d rather be_  
_A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;_  
_So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,_  
_Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn_  
_Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;  
_ _Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn._

\- William Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much With Us"

* * *

 

Gone.

The word echoed in Susan's mind like a church bell, a war drum, the surf pounding the shoreline. No, that analogy was flawed. Now even the shoreline was gone, and so were the drums. That left only the church bell, and as deeply and as terribly as Susan loved Aslan, she did not think she could enter the hollow church just yet. For at least one more day, the open air would be her refuge. Yet even the soft new grass chafed underfoot. Susan blinked as she took in the new growth, the plump buds and the bright colors. How could spring bloom when her heart was still bare as the gnarled branches of the lightning-struck oak? Should not everything be brittle, should not the world be moldering?

Gone. They were all gone. Even the consolation of Narnia, unreachable but green and alive and _safe_ , was gone. And with it, all of her happiest memories, her triumphs, her brother's distant descendents, the earth that had ages ago swallowed the bones of her loyal knight. When Heart, Soul and Mind were gone, what was left?

That, Susan decided, was half the problem. Grief-work aside, she was nothing but flotsam cast adrift. Never before had she felt so insufficient. In all her lives – from London to Narnia, from Tashbaan to Washington – whenever she made a mistake she had learned from it, never to repeat it.

Mistake or not, there would be no repeating this. She could not go back in time to explain better, make her imperative more clear. For months, she had been gently urging her brothers and sister to take up their mantles in England. Every time they spoke of Narnia, her ears were filled with a growing roar that she could not bear. Susan had taken Aslan at his word, that they would not return, but a sort of blindness or madness had infected her brothers and sister. A veil had fallen between them and the world, and all of Susan's desperate cries could not pierce it.

And then the apparition, and the rings – they thought she did not know, they thought she had not listened. She should have been less gentle with them. She should have stormed into the room and shouted loud enough to drown out the roar that if _He_ had meant them to journey anyplace, _He_ would have called them! Susan knew about horns, and being called. Once, she had stopped her ears and averted her eyes and had not seen the Lion in the cliffs, but never again. She would heed Him now.

But Peter's judgment failed him, and Edmund's keen mind did not cast about for other answers, and even Lucy – clear-sighted Lucy who seemed to know Aslan's will in all things – rushed heedlessly, headlong into a doomed mission. Susan knew their deaths were not punishment – not for her, nor for her siblings – but that changed nothing. This was one fatal error for which she could never make amends. Her brothers and sister and parents were dead, and Narnia was _gone_. There would be no absolution.

And so Susan walked alone in the woods, trying to remember the sound of her horn and her sister's voice. She removed her shoes and stood barefoot in the stream until the numbness crept up her legs. Perhaps, if she stood there long enough, it would reach her heart. Was it not thus that Dryads had once stilled into trees?

But then there were horns, and flutes, and a pounding that had nothing to do with church bells but everything to do with the quickening pace of her heart, and the scent of sweet wine. "My lord Bacchus," she murmured.

Before she could ask, he answered: "I have worlds other than Narnia, my Queen. I shall miss her, but I am not bound there." He bowed over her hand and drew closer. "Neither are you."

At that moment, she no longer cared. "Command me to be whole again," she begged him. Bacchus did not reply but only caressed her cheek, and Susan leaned into his touch – now that, she could _feel_. There were no endearments between them. There was… not joy, precisely, but sunlight and hunger and cool, damp soil beneath them. Susan felt her desperation ebbing away, replaced with something resembling peace.

Bacchus whispered in her ear, his breath stirring the hairs on her neck. "Be well, Queen Susan of Narnia. You shall be whole again, someday. Though I cannot command it, I devoutly wish it."

Susan closed her eyes and raised her face to the warmth of the sun. "Amen."


End file.
